Paolo Nespoli’s MagISStra mission at midway point

15 March 2011

ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli is now half way into his six-month mission on the International Space Station. Monday’s handover of command heralds the departure of three crewmembers and the arrival of a new trio in the coming weeks.

Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly handed over command of the Station to cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev during a ceremony yesterday evening.

Kelly, Soyuz commander Alexander Kaleri and Russian flight engineer Oleg Skripochka will close the hatch and depart in their Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft at 06:00 CET on Wednesday, 16 March.

The three Expedition 26 astronauts aim to land in northern Kazakhstan near the town of Arkalyk at 08:48 CET later that day.

The latest visitor was Shuttle Discovery, leaving behind the European-built Leonardo module as a multipurpose storeroom.

The next Shuttle, targeted for launch on 19 April, will deliver the massive Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. Also aboard is another Italian astronaut, ESA’s Roberto Vittori.

Paolo’s three months in space

Paolo Nespoli works with LMM

Paolo Nespoli has now been in space for 89 days – midway through his MagISStra mission.

His duties include ISS flight engineer, conducting more than 30 scientific experiments and technology demonstrations, performing educational activities, participating in public relations events – and using much of his free time photographing Earth and tweeting.